Machine summary:
In the following narrative I rely mainly on two authorities : Firstly, the Badshah Namah of 'Abdul Hamid, a native of Lahore, and a pupil of the famous Abul Fazl who, under the orders of Shahjahan, compiled from official sources a history of the first twenty years of the reign of that Emperor.
(10) Lahore, 189:,-9, numerous references to these gardens yielding some information about the condition of the gardens in the Sikh period, which can be further supplemented from some books of Travels, Before commencing an account of the Gardens, it may not be out of place to mention that the exact meaning of the name Shalimar is not known 1.
" There is, however, no such Turki word known to the diction• aries and the explanation seems to have been derived from such books as Bahar-i-Ajam' where the meaning " House of Desire" is given, though there the word is untenably held to be a Sanskrit word", Mirza Mehdi, the historian of Nadir Shah, gives the form " Shu'la mah" to this name, but that is obviously an attempt to give the word a familiar form and a meaning", Ranjit Singh changed the name Shalimar into Shahla Bagh, as will be explained later.
The water falls from the water-pavilion referred to abo~e in the form of a cascade into a canal, 12 by 8, at the beginning of this terrace in the middle of which has been set a marble platform 4 with recesses on its four sides.